December hasn’t been too kind to the
reigning and defending NBA champions. The Miami Heat are 6-3 SU and 3-6 ATS
this month, and they’re missing one of their best players. No, it’s not LeBron
James – although he is playing on a sore ankle that almost kept him out of
Wednesday’s 97-94 victory over the Indiana Pacers (+4 away). We’re talking
about super-sub Michael Beasley, who strained his left hamstring and has missed
the last six games for Miami.

“Oh, boo-hoo,”
say the Sacramento Kings. They’re sitting at the bottom of the Pacific
Division, where they’ve spent most of the last eight years since head coach
Rick Adelman was allowed to walk. But there’s hope in River City now that the
team is under new ownership. Maybe that hope will be translated into wins
someday. The NBA betting market doesn’t think this Friday will be that day; the
Kings opened as 11.5-point road dogs for their matchup (7:30 p.m. ET) with the
World Champions.

[gameodds]5/250720/?r-1=43-19-349/us[/gameodds]

Be
Like Mike

The Miami Heat (19-6 SU, 12-13 ATS) have won five of
their six games Beasley has missed thus far, so not many people have even
noticed his absence – except for Miami supporters, that is. The Heat have
dropped the cash in three of their last four games, including twice to the
rival Pacers. Without Beasley’s contributions (22.1 PER; 23.2 points and 8.2
rebounds per 36 minutes), Miami has been leaning a bit more heavily on PF
Rashard Lewis (10.0 PER), who has cooled off somewhat after a surprisingly good
start to his 16th season in the NBA.

Beasley’s strained hamstring is one of
those nagging injuries that makes his return date nearly impossible to predict.
There was no indication as we went to press that Beasley would suit up on
Friday, and since the Heat are a lot more concerned about winning SU that ATS,
it makes sense that they’re being very careful about Beasley’s hammy. Consider
him day-to-day until further notice.

A
Message to You, Rudy

Meanwhile, back in Sacto, everybody’s
buzzing about the arrival of SF Rudy Gay. He wore out his welcome with the
Toronto Raptors, where his penchant for isolation plays and long-range 2s was
largely redundant on a team that already had DeMar DeRozan. So Gay was shipped
to Sacramento on Dec. 9, along with SF Quincy Acy and center Aaron Gray, for PG
Greivis Vasquez (14.4 PER), PF Patrick Patterson (10.4 PER), SF John Salmons
(8.4 PER) and PF Chuck Hayes (11.5 PER).

This could be one of those win-win situations.
The Kings (7-17 SU, 8-15-1 ATS) are loaded with shoot-first players, but still,
they don’t have anyone else quite like Gay on the wings. In a very small sample
size of four games, Gay has upped his PER from 15.6 with the Raptors to 20.1
with his new team. That’s probably not sustainable, seeing as Gay’s career-high
in PER was 17.8 with the Memphis Grizzlies. But even that level of performance
would be a welcome addition on a team starving for talent.

King
Missile

Unfortunately for the Kings, they’re 2-4 SU
and ATS since the Gay trade was first announced. They’re coming off an ugly
124-107 loss to the Atlanta Hawks (–6 at home), who sank 15 of their 25 trey
attempts en route to victory. Sacto’s new Big Three of Gay (22 points), center
DeMarcus Cousins (28 points) and PG Isaiah Thomas (20 points) all performed
admirably, but the rest of the thinned out roster wasn’t so hot.

I’d normally be inclined to fade Miami
while Beasley is out, but Sacramento doesn’t look like a very good follow
candidate at the moment. So I’m going to recommend the OVER, which is 7-2 in
Miami’s last nine games and 6-2 in Sacto’s last eight. Anyone who wants to
shoot threes over the 5-foot-9 Thomas is welcome to do so.